First Person - page 125

All bereaved parents need is for you to be there – sometimes, just sitting with us in silence is enough.

It’s a false ideal that suggests there is a fast track to happiness and contentment. There isn’t.

The Government have told shop managers that we have to politely tell customers to wear a mask – but what if they don't listen?

Telling victims to block abusers is not enough. It puts the onus on women to protect themselves, and allows the abuser to continue their behaviour elsewhere, or create a new account.

‘I’ve won. I’ve got six numbers’, she whispered.

I feel like I have to say, Or ‘Don’t worry, I’m on your side'.

If my husband came near me I cried because the smell of him made me sick, too.

The fourth miscarriage was different. This time I found I couldn't 'just carry on' any more.

I will never forget the shock I felt as my body hit the water. It literally took my breath away.

It's awful that it took a pandemic for these options to finally become available to our family.

I knew that if I didn't run, he would kill me.

There’s a new level of connection when he doesn’t just sympathise, but empathises too.

Because I was a boy who didn’t enjoy kicking a ball around a field, I was deemed poor at exercise.

I was the beneficiary of a significant but unexplained room upgrade during two different hotel stays.

I became a single parent overnight, dealing with four very young children and their grief, as well as my own.

The breakup stunned me, not only because the timing was absolutely horrendous, but because I didn’t see it coming.

While therapy helped me sort out why my anxiety-prone brain worked the way it did, weightlifting became the tool I used to stop it from getting into a dark place.

I was hit repeatedly as the policemen interrogated me about being gay.

There’s a lot of fear around the word ‘cannabis’. But for Alfie and my family, it changed our lives.

I will forever be grateful to Coel and I May Destroy You for setting a new bar for how consent and sexual violence are depicted.

I’ve suffered a nervous breakdown and even attempted suicide twice, all because of vaginal mesh.

Right now, my family’s future is uncertain – but we're not alone.

If high profile players are open about being LGBTQ, it will truly help others do the same.

I realised that there was a certain look that a girl had to have to be liked by boys my age – white and skinny with long and straight hair.

Muslim men clearly take dating more seriously than their non-Muslim counterparts.